


Boy gets girl a present

by Prowl_Fan



Series: Harley and the Hatter [3]
Category: Alice in Wonderland (2010), Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 01:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prowl_Fan/pseuds/Prowl_Fan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boy gets girl a present

The next day, the Hatter wandered the streets, looking for the perfect place.   
Harley was scouting. It was tricky to do this, since she had a new black eye, but she didn’t question the logic. Tripping, she continued on. Her ankle hurt, she wasn’t entirely sure why. Then she ran through a street, people fleeing every which way she turned, and was about ready to start circling home, when she ran straight into someone.   
The Hatter felt someone run into him from behind, and he turned, only to find her there. Instantly, he noticed the bruises and swelling, and instantly, he gingerly took her arm, and bowed.   
“My apologies.” He simply said.   
But before he could do anything else, she jerked away, running off and out of sight. The Hatter was perturbed, and decided to go back home.   
He noticed she had been slightly limping, and he wondered why. After a moment of thought, the Hatter decided to head back to his ‘apartment’ to work this through.   
It wasn’t far.   
Harley on the other hand, was perturbed, mildly, but she tried to forget the meeting. Not that she could.   
Those eyes, those big green eyes had seemed so sad, that she couldn’t help but treasure the memory.   
She was home in what seemed like the blink of an eye, although the setting sun said otherwise. Sighing and shaking her head, Harley pushed the experience behind her.   
The Hatter, on the other hand, had taped an enormous map of Gotham to one wall of his apartment. He took a red pin and placed it in the map, at about the place where he first saw her.   
Then he took a yellow one, and put it where he had seen her today.   
Finally, he took a third pin, this one was green, and stuck it in the wall where he had seen both of them together.   
Then he tore open a pack of paper, and started to write all he knew of her on it.   
‘Her name is Harley,’ he scribbled, in writing that was both smooth and even and yet more than a bit erratic,’ She wears a costume of red and black. She has a very pale face, and golden hair. She speaks with an accent, which I don’t yet recognize. She is with another man. He is as pale as she, with green hair. She has mysterious bruises and injuries.’   
He finished, and looked down at his short list. He tacked it up on the wall, next to the map.   
Harley, on the other hand, was having a difficult time explaining what she had done all day, but she managed to do it. The next morning, she realized she had forgotten to leave out the man she had met, but she brushed off the thought, thinking only that it wasn’t that memorable.   
If she only knew how wrong she was.   
She rolled out of bed, and got herself ready for the day.   
The Hatter was preparing for the day, too. He left his apartment, and decided to look around one of the local shops.   
‘Wal-Mart’ it declared, in vivid blue letters. Shrugging, he entered and was amazed at the magic doors that opened without assistance, but then he continued on. He found some supplies that he decided he needed, and then some supplies to make a hat.   
Surely, he decided, that was the best thing to do first, give her gifts. He carried his supplies (in a green basket) where other people were carrying theirs, into rows upon rows of people carrying things.   
At the last minute, he grabbed a thin book as well, and gave them to the man behind the counter.  
“ hey,” the man blearily asked,” you one o’ them?”   
he gestured to the thin book, which had a picture of Her on it, and the Hatter handed the man some of his green paper as he had seen others do,  
and simply said, "Just a Hatter.”   
The man grunted, and handed the Hatter his things and moved on to the next person, a woman with milk and fruit.   
The Hatter walked nonchalantly back to his apartment, and spent the next half hour finding places to put the supplies, putting the thin book off until later.   
The book declared, in thick red letters, ‘HARLEY QUINN’S SECRET’S EXPOSED!’ it also bore a picture of her, carried in the arms of the other man, fleeing an exploding building. It seemed to the Hatter that the thin book seemed quite thick, to be full of secrets.   
He did not return to the store, or even leave the small one-roomed domicile all day. Else he would have seen the commotion outside.   
Oddly enough, Harley was at the Wal-Mart. She hadn’t seen him for more than a second, but she had seen him. She dismissed him as a figment of her imagination, but she had seen him. Shrugging, she carried the gas can, and spread its contents all over the store. She took a particularly hefty swing to the stack of magazines about her.   
At last, it was empty, and she called out, “Ready!” and he walked in.   
He smirked, and laughed. Then he lit a match and threw on the pile. He was gone before the explosion began, and he watched it go up in flames.   
Harley was still in there.   
She ran as fast as she could, but the explosion propelled her out of the store, and she skinned her knee on the parking lot. Hurriedly, she got up, and followed him back home. Now they needed to wait.   
The Hatter poured thoroughly over the skinny book, reading and rereading each and every word. Often he would pull out a pocket dictionary he had also got, and look up certain words. At last, he tore the paper from the wall, and began to write up a new one.   
‘Her name is Harley Quinn,’ he scribbled, in writing that was both smooth and even and yet more than a bit erratic,’ originally called Harleen Quinzel. She wears a costume of red and black. She has a very pale face, and golden hair. She speaks with an accent. She is with another man. His name is the Joker. She was his ‘Psychologist, a mind-examiner, and he drove her to insanity. He is as pale as she, with green hair. She has mysterious bruises and injuries. I’m sure he hits her.’ thinking this over a bit, he added, ‘I love her.’ And then tacked it on the wall.   
He glanced out the window, and only then did he notice the flaming store. Hurriedly, he set his hat on the bed, and rushed out to look. An ambulance and fire truck had already arrived. He was about to retreat, and go to bed.   
Then he saw something on the ground. It was cloth, black cloth. He picked it up, and knew it was hers. Carefully, he carried it back to the apartment, and pinned it to the wall with a purple pin.   
Then he put another purple pin on the Wal-Mart on the map.   
Then he got to work on the hat.   
The next day, he added more pins to the map. He also added more to the list.   
‘She likes the Syringa.’ A white pin on a spot on the river bank where he had caught her smelling the light pinkish-purple flower.   
‘She loves snow.’ A yellow pin on the spot where he had found her dancing in it in the middle of an abandoned street. These kinds of things filled the Hatter’s mind, and he soon added another list to his wall. Whereas the other one was full of ‘she is, she has’ this list was full of ‘does she’. The sheet read,   
‘does she like tea? Does she like hats? Will she like my hat? Does she know I exist? Has she seen me?’ and things of that nature.   
Her hat took shape. He kept it like her own; to be sure she would like it, although he tried to give it his own spin. He made the base of it a deep, tawny brown, with three stemmed points instead of two. A reflective black leather-type material formed the outside of them; they looked for all the world like elegant wet leaves. In stark contrast to the rest of the hat, white fuzzballs adorned the top; they were like snow on a mountain. The whole thing was soft and plush.   
His apartment had also changed. A laptop, radio, and several thick bound books.   
Several of the books were open, and music oozed from the laptop, although it practically fell on deaf ears.   
The Hatter was immersed in his trade. Suddenly he looked up.   
“I just Wanna taaake...”   
the radio sang,   
“Someone else’s holiday…   
Someone else’s grass is greener…   
And someone else’s sugar is sweeter…”   
The hatter finished his work, a dark golden rim and was done.   
It was time to present the gift.


End file.
